A former Medford man who converted to Judaism wants his 12-year-old son to do the same. That requires circumcision—something the mother adamantly opposes.

The divorced couple has been battling over the issue for three years, including whether the boy wants to undergo the procedure. So far, Oregon courts have squarely sided with the father, who has custody….

The mother responded by going to court, saying her son told her that he was afraid to defy his father, but didn’t want the procedure.

Deputy Secretary of State Randall L. Tobias has resigned. It seems that Randy was patronizing escorts in D.C., and he just got caught. Before joining the State Department Tobias was the Bush administration’s AIDS Czar—and a big backer of abstinence and monogamy over condoms.

Just another Republican urging us to “screw as I say, not as I screw.”

Says Joe over at Americablog…

Abstinence is for the little people, not the loyal Bushies. They don’t have to practice what they preach.

Asswipes.

An astonishing number of films opening this weekend didn’t screen for the press. Take this to mean this week’s releases are all awful, take this to mean critics are outdated, take this to mean whatever you like.

But first, the news:

Once again, ladies and gentlemen, a round of applause for Robinson Devor and Charles Mudede, whose documentary Zoo (which was preceded by this feature in The Stranger) was accepted into Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes. (Via GreenCine: a quick rundown of critical response following the NYC opening.)

In the New York Times, Sharon Waxman reports on the rapid fade on female powerbrokers in Hollywood. The past 14 months have seen the departure of three of the four women in top jobs at Hollywood’s major studios:

Nina Jacobson, president of Disney’s motion picture group, lost out in a power play. Gail Berman, the president of Paramount, did not mesh well with her boss, Brad Grey, the studio’s chairman, and was pushed out. And Stacey Snider, the former chairwoman of Universal Pictures, chose to defect to DreamWorks, now a Paramount subsidiary, rather than continue to labor under the pressures of Universal’s ultimate corporate parent, General Electric.

Opening today:

Jen Graves and David Schmader squabble amicably over the 30-year-old Annie Hall. They do agree on one thing: It’s the best romantic comedy EVER.

Brendan Kiley hates, hates, hates on The Condemned: “If watching a good movie is like eating fine steak and watching a bad movie is like eating a cream puff, watching The Condemned is like eating air.”

Plus, Next, Kickin’ It Old Skool, The Invisible, Wind Chill, and more.

And in On Screen this week, the zany slowness that is The Taste of Tea at the Grand Illusion (Charles Mudede: “This could have been a perfect picture”), the abs&ass parade that is Boy Culture at the Varsity (Dan Savage: “Filmed in Seattle, Boy Culture would have us believe that our sleepy little burg is a city of wet, neon-streaked streets crawling with hustlers, wannabes, and the kind of broad-shouldered, big-titted, narrow-waisted gay men you’re more likely to find strolling through West Hollywood (and through casting agencies in Hollywood) than dancing at any gay club that exists in Seattle”), and the delayed coming-of-age that is Diggers (Me: “As a movie, Diggers is affable and lazy—its purpose obscured by a swarm of clichés. As a comic sketch about Frankie and Julie, it’s great”).

Movie Times can be found over there in the upper right-hand corner, or click here. Nice to know: Rear Window is screening at MOHAI next Thursday, so you can do a Disturbia double-header; the Seattle Polish Film Festival (official website) is screening movies about patricidal ideation, depressing towns, and police officers having mental breakdowns; there’s a special big-screen revival of Dirty Dancing; Rudy Ray Moore is in town for a doc about his life and work; and Silent Movie Mondays launches Monday with exciting Harold Lloyd shorts.

Badass WA Senator Patty Murray has proposed legislation to help domestic-violence victims overcome the financial dependency that often keeps them in relationships with violent partners.

The bill, called the Survivors’ Empowerment and Economic Security Act, would give domestic-violence survivors the right to take off work, without penalty, to appear in court, seek legal assistance and access help. Survivors would also qualify in every state for unemployment benefits if they are fired or forced to leave because of abuse, and they would be protected from discrimination in employment and insurance.

Opponents, predictably, claim that the bill discriminates against employers and will discourage companies from hiring people who could be victims of domestic abuse. Given that one in three American women will report physical or sexual abuse by a male intimate partner in their lives, that argument strikes me as pretty specious.

Do the Right Thing: Thailand defiantly manufactures Abbot Labs’ patented HIV drugs.

Free Willie: On the road again.

Other People’s Money: Paying cocaine users for research draws ire.

The Cell: FDA hears major support for innovative HIV treatment.

Nutty Professors: Hawaii may drug test all teachers.

Meet the Parent: Sanjaya’s mom grew pot.

Cast Away: Pot-smokin’ tots to stay with CPS.

Indiana Jones: Speed.

In the Heat of the Night: Officers plead guilty to killing 92-year-old woman during drug raid.

Traffic: Dominican Republic to fire at all suspicious aircraft.

Field of Dreams: Stronger, greener, different.

Look Who’s Talking: Slog’s atrocious 4/20 “coverage” mimicked by Sound Politics.

And now—just to keep you guessing—an image related to the post:

Ah look, you started reading. Cool.

You know something strange is happening to you when you find yourself reading poetry at the gym. Especially if you’re usually sort of hostile to poetry. I’d forgotten how much I love Heather McHugh’s poems. Then I caught her reading at the close of the Seattle Poetry Festival last weekend (recapped in this week’s Nightstand). The next day I was talking with a friend who was looking through the new New Yorker and said, “I don’t like poetry,” and I said, “Have you ever read Heather McHugh?” And because he hadn’t, I spent part of the next day typing her poem “Intensive Care” into the body of an email. “Intensive Care” is the one that begins: “As if intensity were a virtue we say/good and. Good and drunk. Good and dead.” And ends: “Today we were bad/and together; tonight/we’ll be good and alone.”

The reason I was typing that into an email—typing it straight out of my hardcover The Paris Review Book of Heartbreak, Madness, Sex, Love, Betrayal… and Everything Else in the World Since 1953—is because “Intensive Care” isn’t anywhere to be found online. Makes sense, since it’s copyrighted. But the Poetry Foundation—as I learned in that NYer article that pissed everyone off—has something called the Poetry Tool, a searchable online library of poets’ “best and most representative poems,” and they have eight poems by McHugh.

But, uh, Poetry Foundation: on what planet are these Heather McHugh’s best poems? These are okay, totally fine, but you have so many to choose from! Can’t you put up some more? For the sake of poetry? What about “Intensive Care”? Where is “Where,” the one that starts: “I leave the drink and cigarette/where the music is, and go/outdoors where nothing/is the whole idea.//The winter zeros in on eyes and/orphans everyone, and clear//is not a kind of thought./Outside you’re not/as gone as in a house…”

And where’s her sense of humor in these eight poems you’ve chosen, Poetry Foundation? What about, like, “20/200 on 747”? From near the beginning: “Given an airplane, chance//encounters always ask, So what/are your poems about? They’re about/their business, and their father’s business, and their/monkey’s uncle, they’re about/how nothing is about, they’re not/about about. This answer drives them/back to the snack tray every time./Phil Fenstermacher, for example, turns up/perfectly clear in my memory, perfectly attentive to/his Vache Qui Rit, that saddest cheese.” And it gets better, plus there’s even more making-fun-of-Phil: “Mister Fenstermacher is relieved/to fill his mind with the immediate/and masterable challenge of the cheese/after his brief and chastening foray/into the social arts.”

What about one of the fucked up love ones, like “The Most”? (“We are, for your comfort, far from the town/of your friends, of mates and mistresses, and of/amends.”) Or “Preferences,” which pretends to be about Antarctica (where “the plain truth oversimplifies/the human state”) but isn’t (suddenly, outta nowhere: “The heart’s two-timing, thicketed and wrong/but reason doesn’t simply make us single”).

Most of these are in the National Book Award finalist Hinge & Sign: Poems, 1968-1993, the book I’ve been reading at the gym, pedaling a bike to its rhythms, because she has the best rhythms, like “one by one the winters nailed/more cold into her house.” Or like:

The fruit is heavier to bear
than flowers seem to be.
But that’s a lover talking
not a tree.

Here’s a picture of her back:

And here’s an audience review she wrote for The Stranger after a reading she did in 2004.

Heather McHugh is the bomb, the shizzle, the kahuna, the mack, the tits, the g. She’s dope. Sweet. Tight. Phat. All that. And she lives in the same city you do, if you live in Seattle.

I pointed out to ECB that her award was made of lucite, and that lucite is a petroleum product. When I asked her how she could in good conscience accept this award—isn’t she concerned about climate change? shouldn’t the Muni League be recycling awards?—ECB just shrugged. Without a doubt three Bangladeshis will drown as a result of ECB’s situational ethics. Your drive to work? A mortal environmental sin. Her Muni League award? A bit of deserved recognition.

One thing ECB and I agreed on: We were happy to be standing behind this guy during the awards ceremony…

There are some foxy guys in the Muni League—who knew?

The Washington State Supreme Court ruled 7-2 yesterday that it’s illegal to carry protest signs while moving through the common space at the mall.

No matter how older, stupider and conservativer I get, it’s impossible to abandon my Clash T-shirt-10th-grade-brain and accept the shopping as private property/NSA/ Corporate Superstate on this one.

Here’s a clip from Justice Richard Sanders’s dissent.

Because it is a public forum, Westlake Center’s restriction on signs must be narrowly tailored to serve a compelling interest. However, this regulation absolutely prohibits any form of picketing anywhere, anytime, under any circumstance. Furthermore, the prohibition leaves no alternative channel for would-be picketers to express their message. This blanket prohibition violates the First Amendment.

Beth Sanders and William and Patricia Daugaard planned to attend an antiwar protest at Seattle Center. They went to Westlake Center to use the Seattle Monorail. The Daugaards, after seeing the long lines for the monorail, decided to leave the station. As he exited, Mr. Daugaard refused to succumb to repeated commands to lower his protest sign. Beth Sanders decided to ride the monorail and as she waited she held her sign high, peacefully proclaiming her discontent with the war in Iraq. No passengers reported being disturbed or delayed; there were no reports of violence or
injuries. Nevertheless, Sanders was eventually forced to lower her sign. Picketing is a basic and essential means of protest, clearly protected by our right to free speech.

And here’s the majority ruling.

Day = Ruined: Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz flaunts his celebrity and opens a bar. At least he’s not flaunting his dick this time.

The Blakes, Poop, and T-Shirts: Somehow, Eric Grandy finds a connection between all three.

Best Song Ever (This Week): Mirah’s “Cold Cold Water” makes me shiver.

Metal Vegan Cooking: Extreme Noise Teriyaki Kabobs! (Insert badass metal scream here.)

Oh Canada: Terry’s love for Canadian disco.

R.I.P.: Mstislav Rostropovich died.

Dream Police: Carly Nicklaus’s Britney-inspired nightmares.

And now, we have the lovely Jessie and Danny to thank for this:

I went to the Un Chant d’amour/Kenneth Anger screening yesterday, and it was awesome. Except at SIFF, I’ve never seen so many people packed into a screening of experimental films. This is the good that gay content can do. (For the bad that gay content can do, see Dan Savage’s review of Boy Culture, which was, embarrassingly, filmed in Seattle.)

The surprise of the evening for me was one of Anger’s less admired films, Rabbit’s Moon. Here’s Brian Frye’s description in this week’s DVD column:

In Rabbit’s Moon, Pierrot pantomimes his love affair with the moon. Shot in 35 mm on a Paris soundstage, it represents Anger’s re-creation of the theatrical Hollywood fantasies of his youth.

I’ve never been particularly excited about commedia dell’arte, perhaps because I’ve never seen it done or used well. (Incidentally, I’ve concluded there exists no good web page on commedia. Can somebody get on that, please? This one, which is in French, is along the right lines.)

Anger’s Pierrot (André Soubeyran) is adorably rabbity, with neither twitchy nose nor curled up paw-fingers to assist. It somehow seems right that he’d be in love with the rabbit in the moon. And the repeated moon sequence—close, closer, split-second of craters!—is just great. Admittedly, Claude Revenant (the actor who plays Harlequin) sucks. And it goes on too long. But Rabbit’s Moon is incredibly interesting: it’s Kenneth Anger without the testosterone, where performativity is inherent and isn’t just this coy leather costume that veils muscles as it draws attention to them.

If you missed it, you need this DVD:

And this one:

Transportation Secretary Resigning

OLYMPIA, Wash. — Washington Transportation Department Secretary Doug MacDonald is resigning in July. The resignation was announced on Friday by Governor Gregoire, who thanked MacDonald for his leadership over six years. MacDonald plans to live in Seattle and pursue new opportunities in the environmental and transportation fields.

If MacDonald wants to pursue transportation and environmental opportunities, this is a smart move, because that combo is not an option at the state’s road agency.

OMFG! It’s the Stranger’s first ever Week in Geek!

Geek quiz: If you know why this photo is funny, you win.

VOIP safe, for now — Appeals court issues a stay in Verizon v. Vonage, but the future of cheap internet phone calls is in doubt. Fuck Verizon.

China scans students — Chinese college uses fingerprint scanners to take roll, attendance rises to 95 percent.

Continuing their strategy of entering markets 5 years late (see Zune, the), Microsoft takes aim at Adobe’s Flash.

Storage Porn — Ooh, baby.

Despite the inexcusable use of the word “faire”, Maker Faire participants make cool shit: like a life-sized version of the classic mousetrap board game that drops a 2-ton safe instead of a plastic basket.

Happy Geekiversary! — As Star Wars turns 30, thousands get painful reminder of just how long they’ve been living in their parents’ basement.

Paparazzi got you down? Tired of your random prancings around town ending up on your idiot friends’ myspaces? Get yourself some FlickrBlockrs!

Command of the Week: sudo lsof -i | grep LISTEN

And finally, here’s Jodie Foster—in teenaged triplicate—singing Je T’attends Depuis la Nuit des Temps.

Last month, I announced the cool news that our very own Erica C. Barnett had won a reporting award from the Municipal League of King County: Governmental News Reporting of the Year.

Last night was the big night. Cheering, munching on veggie egg rolls, and drinking the free wine, Dan and I (along with Stranger publisher Tim Keck) went to the packed shindig at the doughnut shaped Space Needle skyline room where ECB and the other honored guests (like local historian Walt Crowley, Citizen of the Year, and suburban Rep. Fred Jarrett, Public Official of the Year) got their plaques.

Leave it to ECB. Erica gave a great (and appropriately) iconoclastic speech, stepping away from the polite, fluffy thank you speeches that were delivered by most of the winners. Explaining that she reports not only on what’s happening in the city, but what should be happening in the city, Barnett called for shaking up Seattle’s (bad for the environment) status quo. Then, the Muni League presented Erica with her award—a heavy, bad-for-the-environment—hunk of lucite.

Erica’s had a great year, and I think the award ( quite beautiful, anyway—a big water drop) is long overdue.

Afterwards, the evening got a bit blurry, as a pack of us, including City Council Member Peter Steinbrueck (pictured below) toasted Erica at Black Bottle in Belltown.

What began life as a simple Vietnamese shoe factory has become…oh so very much more than a simple Vietnamese shoe factory.

asiansexgazette.com
www.mr-cupid.com

From the site:

Mr. Cupid guarantees the arrival of the bride within the agreed time frame. Should the bride fails to arrive, the company shall arrange another Matchmaking and Marriage Trip for the client absolutely free.

Innocence, shield thine eyes!

Among other weird things coming to light about the Port lately, I noticed that every one of their twice-a-month public meetings is preceded by a closed door executive session.

As someone who covered city hall for years where executive sessions came up only for special circumstances like confidential real estate discussions or personnel matters, the Port’s practice strikes me as curious.

Executive sessions before every public meeting? What are they talking about in there? Are they scripting the upcoming public meeting?

I brought this to the attention of Port Commissioner John Creighton this morning. (I ran into Creighton last night at a Municipal League shindig, and he gave me his card telling me to call if I ever had questions about the Port.)

Creighton, elected from the moderate right over super liberal Lawrence Malloy in 2005, told me this morning: “It’s the way the Port has been doing things for years. And I think it bears looking into.”

State law enumerates when it’s appropriate to have executive sessions. So, I took his advice and started looking into it. With him.

I asked Creighton if if these regular meetings actually fit the bill as described by state law. He acknowledged that a recent meeting about real estate had “devolved into a political discussion” and two commissioners, including himself, questioned whether or not this aspect of the meeting was appropriate. Creighton, in fact, says he brought it to the attention of Port legal staff, and they told him the Commission was advised to “reel it back in.”

Obviously, with so many regular “executive sessions,” the Commission is getting lackadaisical about following the rules. Given the $420 million Port’s taxing authority—$68 million in property taxes—this is red flag situation.

I also talked to Creighton about the recent scandal. (It came to light last week that Port Commissioner Pat Davis signed a memo without the consent of her fellow Commissioners authorizing a hefty retirement package for former Port CEO Mic Dinsmore.)

In particular, I asked Creighton about the point I Slogged yesterday: Pat Davis’s alibi is problematic on its face. She says her lone signature authorizing the Dinsmore severance is kosher because the deal had been discussed by the Commission in executive session. But those types of discussions are supposed to be public.

(I asked the Port’s legal staff about this yesterday as well, and they say only “final action” on compensation packages for individuals need to be done in public.)

The legal staff is correct about the language, but I’m not sure it clears Davis. It seems to me a final action had already been taken: Davis signed a memo authorizing the payment to Dinsmore. It only came to light, according to sources at the Port, when an HR person brought it to the attention of the new Port CEO, Tay Yoshitani, before presumably trying to make good on Dinsmore’s “severance.”

Creighton seems to agree with me. He told me: “Whatever happened in Executive session, that memo should have never been signed without a Commission vote in public.”

As for why the Commissioners didn’t call for Pat Davis’s resignation? Well, there had been a rumor that new Port CEO Tay Yoshitani had threatened to quit if the Commission didn’t defuse the scandal. Creighton closed in on confirming that rumor. He told me this morning: “We have a new director. He doesn’t want a squabbling commission. He didn’t want to hold his head in his hands and head back to Baltimore.” (Yoshitani was the Director of the Maryland Port Administration in the late 90s.)

It’s spring. Anyone over 25 is at least thinking about exercise. I know I’m debating that gym membership I haven’t used in four months, two weeks, and three days. I’m also feeling terribly guilty every time I look at those unopened Turbo Jam DVDs, I bought from a way-too-convincing Sunday-morning infomercial… oops.

Anyway, for this week’s HOW WAS IT? episode, I thought I might see what people were up to for exercise. I went to Kent to see some girl-on-girl oil wrestling, a downtown Seattle gym, and the 2007 Emerald Cup Bodybuilding and Fitness Expo over in Bellevue. Please enjoy.

Me, I think I’m still a firm believer in the immortal words of my wise Aunt Roach: “Thin may be in, but a li’l fat’s where it’s at”

The LGBT Community Center wants to wrest control of the pride parade from SOaP and move it back to Capitol Hill.

They say they oppose the downtown parade because Capitol Hill is the historic home of Seattle’s gay and lesbian community. That’s why the parade belongs here. Moving the parade downtown and the rally to Seattle Center was, they insist, an unforgivable betrayal of the gay community and, more to the point, gay business owners on Capitol Hill. (In actual fact Capitol Hill only became Seattle’s gay neighborhood in the 1980s. Pioneer Square is the “historic” home of Seattle’s gay community. Maybe the parade belongs there?)

The LGBT Community Center’s biggest annual fundraising event is the Fruit Bowl Awards, which honors “individuals and organizations in Seattle whom have made significant contributions to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender community.” Last year the Fruit Bowl Awards ceremony was held on Broadway, at the old Safeway. And where is this year’s Fruit Bowl Awards ceremony being held?

Seattle Center.

Media says: Yawn.

Granted, the Austin American-Statesman did a really good, thorough job with its story about yesterday’s attempted bombing at a South Austin abortion clinic (the device, which contained explosive powder and nails, would have caused “substantial harm” if it had detonated, which it was capable of doing, according to Austin police). But national media, including the AP (380 words, generally truncated to fewer than 100) CNN (300 words) Reuters (195 words) and Fox (350 words) treated it as a virtual nonstory.

Because obviously we can’t call it “terrorism” when women are the victims and right-wing lunatics are the culprits.

Weston Sprigg has been a board member of Seattle Out and Proud for three years. We spoke this morning.

So what exactly went down? Why did you guys decide to go ahead with the parade downtown?

We met Tuesday night with an attorney present—he was sitting there basically to make sure we were doing everything appropriately. Then we started laying out our options—fold, declare bankruptcy, give up on the festival and the parade—but we also discussed the press we’d been getting and the public reaction. We had all been getting feedback, tons of it, coming into by email and phone. We heard from people that said they got a taste for what the event could be last year when it moved downtown and they didn’t want to go backward.

The support for the downtown parade was overwhelming. And people were telling us that we had an obligation to stick with it—not just the downtown parade, but stick with it so we could pay our bills, that we had an obligation to pay our bills, that we shouldn’t run from them. And people were saying they would help us do that.

And the SOaP felt that only its continued existence—deciding not to fold—could ensure that the parade remained downtown, that it didn’t move backwards?

Yes, absolutely. The LGBT Community Center had already proposed stepping into the void that would be created if we folded and they had committed to moving the parade back to Capitol Hill. They’re committed to Capitol Hill generally—not in a bad way, but they’re committed.

We had to weigh that against what people were telling us. And they were telling us that they wanted to the traditional Sunday parade and they wanted it downtown, just like last year. It really meant a lot, being downtown, for a lot of people it was the first time they felt accepted by the wider community, like they belonged here. But SOaP folding meant no downtown, and the loss of that. And that, we felt, was valuable.

How do you plan to pay your bills?

By doing what’s always been financially successful, the parade, and chipping away at rest of the debt. In reality only half the patient here was sick—the festival. That’s why we brought in IES in the first place, that’s why we took on a producing partner with experience running festivals.

The parade has never made a ton of money. It might generate an extra ten thousand dollars this year, which will go towards the debt.

We’re also raising money for the parade and the debt. People are going to the site and making donations. We’ve seen donations of $100 and donations of $10. We raised a thousand dollars last week at a Bucca De Beppo fundraiser. People are stepping forward and saying, “I understand now that even though I’ve participated on the sidelines and enjoyed it I need to make a contribution and really support it.”

What are you doing to right your financial ship administratively?

An independent auditor has stepped forward, a professional auditor, who man that works for a bank as an auditor. He’s going to help us establish an audit and oversight committee, independent of the board, to take us to the next level of transparency and accountability.

Many people are wary of getting involved with SOaP, or any pride planning group, because of the non-stop drama. What would you say to people that want to step forward and help but are, frankly, afraid of getting dragged into the pride mud?

Now’s the time to get involved. All we can say is that if people don’t get involved now the drama will happen all over again, and probably be worse.

You know, last night I volunteered for Lifelong AIDS Alliance’s Dine Out for Life fundraiser. I spent the night at the Broadway Grille, volunteering for a different community non-profit. This weekend I’m volunteering at a Seattle Men’s Chorus auction.

It’s easy right now to volunteer for these groups. They’re well organized, with large, professional staffs. It’s harder to volunteer for us. But if people don’t volunteer it will never get easier to work on pride events. Seattle has the largest gay chamber of commerce in the country, the largest community chorus in the world, and probably the second largest AIDS organization in the country. All these groups are powered by volunteers. We should have one of the largest and strongest pride groups in the country too.

How can people donate?

They can donate online at www.seattlepride.org.

Dear Stranger: I am writing to tell you that I found your “Jesus Blog” feature to be in very poor taste. This was every bit as offensive as the infamous Dutch [sic] cartoons satirizing Mohammed. It is interesting to note that no major U.S. media outlets would publish the cartoons [though The Stranger did —Ed.], because many saw them as bigoted and intolerant. However, while other religions are respected, Christianity is apparently fair game for all kinds of low humor. Perhaps this is because offended Christians merely write Letters to the Editor, instead of burning down embassies. In any case, I implore you to be more tolerant of other’s beliefs, rather pointlessly subjecting them to ridicule for cheap laughs.

Nathan Tamm

The Blood Brothers (MUSIC) Suggesting that music lovers of Seattle go to a Blood Brothers show is about as pointless as telling Anna Nicole Smith that she’s dead. You already know all about the Blood Brothers and their hyperactive, pioneering, snotty prog-meets-hardcore sound that, when played live, turns the room into a dripping, sticky pit of flailing limbs. Right? Right. I’m sure you do. (The Showbox, 1426 First Ave, 628-3151. 8 pm, $13 adv/$15 DOS, all ages.) MEGAN SELING

^{For Eighty Cents! (Per ottanta centesimi!), 1895, oil on canvas, by Angelo Morbelli.}

Divisionism/Neo-Impressionism: Arcadia & Anarchy: All right.

(Straight-up impressionism makes its next celebrity appearance in Seattle a year from now, in this.)

In this week’s feature on Gage Academy of Art, I write about the academy’s conflicted director, Gary Faigin.

Faigin is one of my favorite characters in Seattle art. He is eccentric and stubborn, and openly admits he is threatened by a newfound open-mindedness that has taken him over in the last few years. The fight at the heart of Gage Academy is the fight at the heart of Gary Faigin, between an emphasis on time-tested skill in art—the stuff you can’t bullshit—and ideas, feelings, all the things you can’t measure, but which ultimately make art what it is.

Actually, that’s the conflict at the heart of art, too. Which must be why I like Faigin so much—he invites the conflict and sits with it.

What I couldn’t fit into the story were the details of Gary’s life. As one-half of the couple that founded Gage Academy (Pamela Belyea is the other half), Faigin might seem from a distance to be a patrician. After all, he’s the guy behind Seattle’s only “classical” academy, a place from which all manner of finely honed drawings of nudes and genteelly painted still-lifes issue forth like a parade of dead white kings.

But Faigin is no silver-spooner. Here’s a section I had in the original draft of my story, but which got cut for space:

Faigin got started in art the way most artists do: by drawing. He dropped out of college in the name of political activism (among other things, Faigin protested the Democratic nomination of Hubert Humphrey over the anti-war candidate, Eugene McCarthy, in 1968) and generalized hippie wandering (“a couple of guys came and said, well, there are whole sheets of blotter acid in San Francisco, and what were we doing wasting our time in Ann Arbor?”). Then, he tried becoming a novelist. He discovered he liked doing illustrations in the margins better than writing. His first complex drawing from life was in his 20s, of his own feet sticking out of his sleeping bag. (Belyea still has the drawing.) He was so satisfied with the act of achieving a likeness that he decided to go back to school—”art school, not college.” In December of 1976, Faigin and Belyea hitchhiked from Vancouver, B.C., to New York on less than $100. He was headed for the Art Students League of New York. In a catalog he’d found, the school listed its prerequisites as, “There are none.”

Yesterday, in a perfect twist, I found out that Faigin plays prominently in a new photograph by Thomas Struth—the artist who shoots museum visitors as they survey masterpieces. Turns out Faigin was leading a Gage tour at the Prado, and gesticulating in front of Velazquez’s Las Meninas when the photo was taken, in 2005. (The photograph is up at Marian Goodman Gallery in NY through this weekend.) Faigin is the only person in the photograph whose face really shows, and in an April 10 review in the NYT, Michael Kimmelman mentions him, “the smiling tour guide, leaning into a goggle-eyed scrum of visitors who lean oh so slightly away from the Velázquez, as if intimidated by its reputation.”

“How about that for a crossover of the Classical and the modern?” Faigin emailed me. Indeed. Thomas Struth had no idea what he’d captured.

Dead.

Damn you, Tyler Green!

Yesterday, Modern Art Notes reported that Aqua Art Miami, the fair concurrent with Art Basel Miami Beach run by two Seattle artists, Jaq Chartier and Dirk Park, will be expanding this December.

And not just expanding, but doubling—and improving.

In addition to the hotel part of Aqua on the beach, Chartier and Park will be renting out a warehouse across the bridge in Wynwood, near where NADA holds its popular fair. Asked whether Aqua is going head-to-head with Nada, Chartier told MAN: “Definitely.”

Aqua’s warehouse presentation will have larger booths than NADA, permanent walls (since Aqua will be renting the warehouse year-round—which raises the question, is Aqua expanding beyond a December phenomenon?), and a layout that does away with the usual shopping aisles setup.

Bold, bold, bold, bold, bold.

This is why I go speak at colleges…

I’m a student at Western Washington University. I was at your Savage Love talk on this past Wednesday and I must say it was one of the most powerful talks that I have ever been too.

I first want to say, Thank you! One of the questions you answered was about people having a “gay voice.” All my life I have been know as a “sissy fag” and I’ve always tried, no matter what, to change my voice, my walk and my mannerisms. Even my gay friends thought I was a little bit much at times. Never in my entire life has anyone said to me that it’s ok to be a sissy and have the “gay voice” and it was natural and something I couldn’t control. No one.

You don’t know me personally or anything but hearing you say that made me feel finally accepted, and that I need not be ashamed of who I am. You don’t know how much it means to me to hear that told to me after years of trying to hide or change who I am. For that I am thankful.

I must also admit that I am what you would call a chicken-shit. I’m a college student at a very liberal university but I still can’t admit to some of my friends that I’m gay. But you have inspired me; I guess I have never really thought about the fact that if they don’t accept me that maybe I don’t want them as friends anymore. I need to be more honest and accepting of who I am if I wish to be happy.

Thank you very much. I wish I got a chance after the show to let you know how much of a positive impact your talk has had on my life but alas I promised to drive a friend home. I know you get lots of emails a day and I don’t know when you will see this but I just wanted to let you know that you in the course of a couple hours have truly impacted and made a difference in my life.

Okay, the money’s pretty good too. But this email really made the drive up to Bellingham worth it—and that’s saying something, considering that the boyfriend brought the poodle, which promptly got car sick and threw up all over my coat, computer bag, and the back seat, and the car stank—stank—of dog vomit all the way up to Bellingham and all the way down to Seattle.

..no matter what Adrian says below.

Some want to help us learn and grow.

Ladies, gentlemen, Showgirls fans: Ask Elizabeth!

(FYI to those wondering about the double surname: Elizabeth Berkley is married to Ralph Lauren’s son. Also, don’t let my flip introduction to Berkeley’s website read as condemnation of its contents. Clearly “Ask Elizabeth!” has its heart in the right place and is a force for good. Nevertheless, Berkley’s progression from TV’s Saved by the Bell to Verhoeven’s Saved by the Pole to her own Saved by Self-Esteem is too juicy to ignore.)

(Thanks to the blessedly returned Hot Tipper Jake.)

Today dawns legally contentious for the famous as the long and punitive arm of the law reaches to ensnare a herd of fresh celebrity fuck-ups, each spotlighted for new peccadilloes. These included, but are not limited to:

Hugh Grant!
Sore whores, relax! Hugh has been arrested for assault with a deadly legume. He lost his cool British temper at some dude that was following him around with a camera, and retaliated by hucking a Tupperware container full of his limey beans at the poor guy’s head. He also reportedly pranced up and kicked him in the knee like a little girl. No official charges have been filed. Yet.

Richard Gere!
Gerbils, relax! (Sorry.) Richard is wanted in India for kissing (a woman, ahem) in public. There has actually been a warrant filed for his arrest. Indians are apparently so offended by kissing (women, ahem) in public that angry and very prude crowds burned the almost-60-year-old actor in effigy in three major cities. Which is the least he deserves.

Snoop!
Snoop is not wanted in Australia. He overstayed his visa in February and has been refused reentry into the country. (They say his extensive rap sheet also might have had something to do with it.) And did I ever tell you about the time I rubbed his shoulders? I love that story.

Tyra!
Tyra Banks dine-‘n-dashed on her $100 lunch bill at a New York restaurant. The New York Daily news tattled on her, so she got all embarrassed and went back and paid and claimed it was an accident. But everybody knows she’s lying. You know it. I know it. Everybody knows it. Fucking liar.

Eve!
Eve wrecked her car in L.A., and has been arrested on suspicion of drunk-driving. Sean Penn offered to bail her out. I wonder where he got the money. He owes me 10 bucks.

Creepy Bean Thrower!

The organization that moved Seattle’s Gay Pride Parade downtown last year has collapsed come back (yet again) from the brink of collapse, leaving the location of this year’s parade uncertain the same as last year (although perhaps with a competing parade on Capitol Hill yet again). We Sloggers certainly have our own opinions about where the parade should be held, and we’ll probably be posting a lot more about what we think should happen. But never mind us. What do you think? Where should Seattle’s Gay Pride Parade take place?

Originally posted on Tuesday. Poll closes on Sunday

And what is the use of this?

George J. Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, has lashed out against Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials in a new book, saying they pushed the country to war in Iraq without ever conducting a “serious debate” about whether Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the United States.

Remember how Rudolph Giuliani’s position on same-sex marriage—flower girl—was going to hurt him with the religious right? Not anymore. Yesterday Giuliani pulled a Romney-esque flip flop on gay marriage, coming out—get it? coming out?—against New Hampshire’s new law creating civil unions for same-sex couples. There’s a lot of very thoughtful commentary out there already about Giuliani’s craven attempts to appease the religious right—Giuliani’s the Neville Chamberlain of gay marriage!—but I think Gawker says it best…

America’s Mayor is a Liar

Yesterday Rudy Giuliani announced that he had been pretending for years that he believed that the gays should have civil unions—including the gays he lived with when he was kicked out of Gracie Mansion by his spurned former wife, right after he broke up with her via press conference—and said that he would now immediately begin pretending to believe that he is firmly against civil unions. Giuliani, the most rat-faced and most-married of all the former mayors of New York, is now running for President on a platform that his advisers refer to as Operation Two-Faced Gay-Traitor, which is intended to convince national voters that clearly he will use any opportunity to seize power and then turn this country into a morally-pure fatherland united in opposition to both the filthy Arabs and anyone who doesn’t want to have sex with Judith Regan—a transformation he can effect in just under ten days, unless he’s too busy cheating on a wife or committing incest.

Debate: Dem candidates find unity in Bush-bashing

Crisis: UN struggling to aid Somalia

Scapegoat? George Tenet rails on administration

Executive Privilege: Condoleeza Rice shirks subpoena

Civil Unions: Now available in New Hampshire

Another One Bites the Dust: Arizona GOP Rep under investigation, could resign

The Man Who Rated Movies: Former MPAA chief Jack Valenti dies

So That’s Where I LeftThem: UW opens time capsule, finds porno mags

Fun Superhero Fact of the Day: One time, The Avengers were on Letterman